Monday, May 20, 2013

BAND QUASI-INTERVIEW: Four Minute Mile

   Four Minute Mile is a pop-punk band from Washington state who did a tour of the West Coast recently. My BFFs in Crisis Arm played at their tour kickoff up in WA and then my band The Gravitys played with them a few days later when they stopped by The Dial. They were all really awesome dudes, helpful and humble, friendly but not overbearing. Their set that night was spot-on, one of the better groups within their stylistic realm who have cruised by the warehouse recently, and we all had a good time chilling at the 'merch'/lobby area in between sets. The drummer dude even bought my old Betrayed T-shirt since I had set up a little mini-'distro' box. Thanks, man!
   After the show I decided to just ask them some real basic questions and jot down their responses haphazardly. Like my recent 'interview' with The Frights this was done my compiling the scribbled versions of what they said with my general memories the conversation. I should really start bringing a voice recorder around with me like everywhere I go so these issues stop arising.
   My initial question regarded the tour and anything in particular they've noticed/had problems with/wanted to share. Drummer dude Kevin informed me that this was Day 5 of the current tour; they had driven from WA to the Bay Area, out to Las Vegas ("Jesus Christ it was hot") and then back to CA. The entire ordeal has been "way hotter than we're used to." According to the gibberish I have written down it looks like they've played with bands like The Sheds, Dead End Alaska ("those are the dudes"), Anchorless from Pasadena, as well as Carlos The Dwarf and Headway (and The Gravitys :D) from that night. He mentioned a place called The Terrace, which I think is where they played with Anchorless and it was a bar/venue although he didn't have bad things to say about it like most people do about "venues" that are actually just bars. For some reason I also had the words "Dragonball-Z" written in this section of my notes. IDK.
   Their bassist Sebastian also had a few things to say when I presented my general questions. He said that the highlight of playing with FMM (and this sounded to be a general reflection not just regarding the tour) were the people who come to shows and actually stick around for all the bands, instead of just showing up for their friends' group and then leaving. His logic was like, 'if you're gonna pay for the show, stick around for the whole show!' True dat. He had nice things to say about the bands and people they've worked with recently and his overall advice was "Help Out. Be Nice. Everybody Love Everybody (ELE)."
   I spoke to the vocalist Devon after everybody else and he talked about a band who took them out when they were in Northridge. It looks like their name might have been Study & The Search or something but honestly that portion of the interview is pretty goddamn illegible, even to me. Chicken-scratch.

   The most important question I pose during any 'interview' I ever conduct is "What's your favorite breakfast food?", to which I received legitimate answers from each member of the band EXCEPT Kevin, who otherwise was the most informative.
   Sean the guitarist likes poppyseed muffins from CostCo.
   Brent the other guitarist has a preference for biscuits & gravy.
   "I love Honey Nut Cheerios more than life" - Sebastian
   Devon mentioned a breakfast sandwich composed of bacon sausage and eggs that I wrote "4 of'em" next to. Eating 4 of that sandwich would be too much.
   They all seemed to have an affinity for breakfast burritos, I feel like that was mentioned several times, although none of them specified them as their go-to favorite. Read into that however you would like.

www.facebook.com/fourminutemilewa
fourminutemile.bandcamp.com

*I wrote this while waiting for burgers at the beach

Monday, May 13, 2013

EP REVIEW: Bombanfall - "Asiktsfrihet"

   I am once again interrupting my work on larger projects to write a pointless review of an obscure hardcore-punk 7" that I downloaded from an mp3 blog years ago and subsequently lost into my never-ending pile of CD-Rs. I detailed the circumstances of all that in my recent Teenage Depression review so I'll just jump straight to the meat of the matter with this one.
   Bombanfall was a mid-to-late 1980s Swedish hardcore band that, from all the online info I can find, self-released this 7" without a record label in 1987. I probably could have just said "1980s Swedish hardcore" and left it at that because they are so indicative of the style with almost no attempt whatsoever at variation, but it's a cool style and fans of this stuff aren't really looking for innovation anyway. The obvious points of reference are Motorhead and Discharge, just even dirtier and taking even more uppers; classic "D-Beat" assault-drums for much of the 8 minutes this EP goes for. There are also (still, obvious) elements of Amebix-style dirgy crust-metal on a few tracks, especially the 4th song "Iskallt Regn," as well as slight FX on the vocals to make them seem more evil, like how GISM used to do. The drum-rolls on "Halsning Fran Helvetet" sound like bullets and that song has a pretty cool Halloween-esque solo part in the middle.
   For the most part this is another Swedish D-beat thrasher that didn't even try to break established molds or push the boundaries of their style, but the music is played well without compromising the fundamental brutality this sound requires.
   Recommended for fans of bands whose names start with Dis-.
   This review was written in almost exactly 20 minutes while on downtime at work.

http://www.7inchpunk.com/2006/02/23/bombanfall/

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

EP REVIEW: Teenage Depression - "Skank Or Die"

   I downloaded this 9-song EP from the 7inchpunk.org blog several years ago, before that site became inactive (long enough of a stretch where I just stopped checking for updates and upon looking it up again has not made one in 2 1/2 years). Sometimes I don't know why I burned all those downloads to CD-R; my stacks of music are ridiculous and unmanageable, unwieldy even, but there was a period when I didn't really have a good set-up for listening to music through my laptop because I don't like having headphones on constantly. So I have just stacks and stacks of CDs that I've listened to like once or twice and as a result I'm always coming across little pieces like this that were forgotten by time and then forgotten by myself as well.
   I know pretty much nothing at all about this band and went into the listen blind, but I very much like the band name and most of the stuff on 7inchpunk fits a pretty discernable category (punk-core and punk-heavy crossover from the 80s or bands playing blatant 80s throwback stuff) so I guess I wasn't completely blind. I basically knew what I was in for. There were about 15 minutes before I had to leave for work so a quick hardcore EP was the perfect option.



   Teenage Depression was an 80s punk/hardcore band (they've got to actually be from the era this doesn't sound like a throwback band) that's heavy on the punk side of things. Bands they most immediately remind me of are West Coast staples like The Adolescents or The Chiefs so I'm just gonna go ahead and guess they're from the Los Angeles area circa 1982 or maybe like the Rockies area/midwest a few years later. (NOTE: Upon looking up this release online to get the album cover image I found a separate punk mp3 blog that said they were from New Jersey and this 7" was released in 1984 so I was totally off geographically but not so much in terms of timeline. Also that site has the songs listed in different order so I don't know which is correct. Kind-of a non-issue however this isn't a concept album. That said, this review was written with those assumptions in mind.)
    The first song, "I Love Kate," is undistorted and has an almost cow-punk vibe going on like a rudimentary Dead Milkmen  track or even kinda like the 'softer' tracks on "Not So Quiet On The Western Front" like the ones from Bent Nails and Angst. It's a bit of a stylistic anomaly amongst the rest of the EP, however, much of which is pointlessly fast and generic 3-chord punk/core. They do attempt some little musical chances to differentiate their songs from the general morass that is the US82 sound, like the lounge intro for the second song (which I think was a shit-talk song about Henry Rollins) and an appropriation of The Clash's "Clampdown" in between fast parts on the final song, but for the most part its pretty straightforward 80's punk thats clearly from the DIY level. One of the tracks almost sounds like early Agnostic Front, if not for the clownishly goofy Crucifucks-esque vocals.
   Thematically, they have a stupid anarchy song that sounds exactly how you would expect a stupid anarchy song to sound; one of the mid-tempo quasi-breakdowns has lyrics about 'living your life' because he's not gonna tell you what to do and you shouldn't tell him what to do either. You know, that old song n dance. Most of the fastcore stuff is (I would assume intentionally) unintelligible. Given the context of this style I can't tell if this band was being stupidly ironic with their apparent lite sloganeering like the Circle Jerks, or if they were being stupidly serious with it like Youth Brigade.
   This isn't the dopest rare 80s 7inch record that I have burned onto CD-R, there are many many more high-quality works, but I love the 80s Cali-core sound so overall it was a good listen. Download it if you so desire, I'm sure obtaining a physical copy will take more effort and record-collector pixie dust than is really necessary.

 http://www.7inchpunk.com/2006/04/12/teenage-depression/


Friday, May 3, 2013

Playlist for April 2013

This is a list of all the albums, EPs, demos, etc that I listened to in their entirety during the month of April 2013. Afterwards are my notes and a list of the live performances I saw this past month.

4/6/13
Fleetwood Mac - "Rumours"
The Roots - "Phrenology"
LotusRoom - 3-song demo CD
Idasas - "Limited Edition" EP
Tan Dollar - "Rats"
Light Light - "Breakfast/Overwhelmed" CD single
Crisis Arm - "Demos" (Ladybug)
Little Teeth - "Questo e della Mia Casa" EP
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Nocturama"
Elevators - "Future" EP
Welcome To Now - 8-song demo CD
Oranges - 4-song demo CD
Deftones - S/T

4/8/13
Caustic Resin - "Keep On Truckin'"

4/9/13
The Gravitys - "Bring You Down"

4/10/13
The Gravitys - May 2011 Demo

4/11/13
Wonder Wheel - "Succotash Xs"
Lacerda - "Epic Pop" EP
Weed Diamond - "Seasonal"
Gym Class Heroes - "As Cruel As School Children"
The Killers - "Hot Fuss"
Stag Hare - "Black Medicine Blues"
Street Rats - "Suboredom"demo
Brothers & Sisters - S/T

4/14/13
Kitchen - "Reese Just Licked Me"
Sarah McLachlan - "Surfacing"
Agnostic Front - "Victim in Pain" EP
Madrost - "Maleficient"
Barry Manilow - "Ultimate Manilow"

4/15/13
Fiona Apple - "Tidal"
Crush - "We Grew Up" EP

4/17/13
The Gravitys - "Bring You Down"
The Gravitys - May 2011 demo
The Gravitys - June 2011 demo
Left Astray - S/T EP
Deal's Gone Bad - "The Ramblers"
Crisis Arm - "Caterwaul" rough demos

4/18/13
The Deadly Reds - "Crimson Flag" EP
Talking Heads - "Stop Making Sense"
Machinist! - "Black List" EP
Antidote - "Destroy Fascism"
New Pornographers - "Challengers"

4/19/13
Caliban - "A Small Boy and a Grey Heaven"
Higher Learning - "Depths" EP
Dead Leaf Echo - "Birth" 7"
Dead Leaf Echo - "Kingmaker" 7"
Brazil - "The Philosophy of Velocity"
98 Mute - "After the Fall"

4/20/13
Dishwalla - "And You Think You Know What Life Is About"
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - "Against The Wind"

4/21/13
Matt Pless - "Tumbleweed"
Bob Seger - "Face the Promise"
98 Degrees - "And Rising"

4/24/13
Mr. Whipple - "The Lost World" EP
Stevie Wonder - "Love Songs: 20 Classic Hits"
Love American - "Disquiet"
V/A - "NOW! That's What I Call Christmas!" Disc 1
Joan Osborne - "Relish"

4/25/13
V/A - "NOW! That's What I Call Christmas!" Disc 2
Monica - "Miss Thang"

4/26/13
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young - "4-Way Street" Disc 2
Business Boys Never Rest - "Villains" EP
Whitesnake - S/T
Little Teeth - "Falling Off The Bed By Default Of The Bed Falling Off The Bed"

4/28/13
Slingshot Dakota - "Dead Hearts"
Sordo/Chulo - split EP
Eons - "The Weight of Tragedy" EP
Disapproval - "El Monte Youth Authority" EP
The Gift Machine - "Goodbye, Good Luck"
Disarray - S/T EP

4/30/13
New Brigade -2011 Demo

NOTES
- I hadn't listened to anything for like the entire last week of March so going 6 days into April as well is like a life record of non-listening.
- I listened to like half a Lilith Fair lineup this month
- Goddamn I listen to my own music way too much
- Man I listened to the most un-420 music on 420
- You saw that right. 98 Degrees. "NOW! That's What I Call Christmas" 2-Disc set. Monica. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME.
- I don't have strong enough feelings about this playlist to make any other observations right now

LIVE PERFORMANCES
4/5 - Uncle Ben's Children/Business Boys Never Rest/Aaron Minardi/(end of the summer) @ The Dial Open Mic Night
4/8 and 4/9 - The Coltranes EP recording @ The Dial
4/13 - C. Kitten/Katfka/(end of the summer)/Freddy Fuddrucker/Matt Pless/Just Nick/Jill Elardo @ The Dial Acousticfest Pt. 2
4/15 - The Ugly live session @ The Dial
4/16 - The Coltranes/(The Gravitys)/Crisis Arm/Reflect @ Shane's Birthday House Show
4/19 - The Coltranes/Higher Learning/Left Astray @ The Dial "DEVO3" skate video premiere
4/20 - Dead Leaf Echo/The Gift Machine/Gossimer @ The Dial
4/22 - Light Light live session @ The Dial
4/27 - C. Kitten/(end of the summer)/American Lies/Endangered Species/Starfish/Beanvian Stalks Guava/(dude from Tangerine Smile)/Final Decision In The Temple Of Time/Unnattractive Irrelevant @ the 2nd Annual Punx Picnic in Elysian Park
4/29 - Limerent Dance Machine/Slingshot Dakota/(The Gravitys)/Beanvian Stalks Guava @ The Dial

- expect reviews of most every one of these things, most likely all bundled together as a full-Month review. Gon' be long.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

BAND OVERVIEW: The Frights



   I had listened to the debut EP by The Frights a few days before The Dial’s Gallery Night on March 29 because I knew I’d probably see them that night and I was hella bored at lunch.  That’s when I usually listen to music released within the last 3 years, at work. When I’m at home, I have more than enough CD piles to get through to worry about today’s new cool stuff.  I’ll hear it eventually.  I did end up catching their set that night at the Gallery, however, and decided, shit,  I’ll just interview these dudes,  they’re right fucking there.  So that’s what I did.  EP review + live review + interview = band overview. Enjoy.
   My first impression of this band was at Kevin Crisis’s Birthday Show/”Burger Revolution”  a few weeks back.  They were listed first on the flyer but ended up playing last; by that time I had absolutely no energy left at all and passed out on one of the lobby couches (something I’ve been advised not to do….ewwwww).  Although I didn’t actually watch them, they sounded adept and nice-sounding enough for me to gently fade away to.

   Listening to the EP I could tell these guys play tight although they play a very recognizable breed of beach-indie that (like every genre if you were to ask me) is a bit overdone right now. Best Coast, Wavves, all that stuff, it’s cool but the formula’s wearing a bit thin.  Just to illustrate that point for me, The Frights called their EP “Dead Beach” and it has a song called “Beach Porn.”  Talk about remaining true to form.  Nevertheless, it’s not a shitty release for what it is, I enjoyed it,  I just wasn’t blown away (I never am).  They have a song called “Blister Pop” that’s a good indicator of the overall sound these dudes have; that might as well be the new name of this entire genre.
   Before they played at Gallery Night,  organizer girl Vania was doing a raffle for various Dial things like keychains & mugs & shirts and shit;  the band were sitting Indian-style next to their amps,  very patiently.  If it had been The Gravitys I would have been making funny faces behind her the whole time and not been nearly as respectful.  These kids have class, is what I’m trying to say.  Pretty much immediately as the raffle was over they stood up and started right up and sounded spot-on from the very first chord.  These dudes must practice A LOT; they sounded recorded.  Maximally Pocket.  The bassist has real cool groovy contortions going on while he plays that don’t seem forced.  All 3 of them were killing it, and it occurred to me, ‘these kids are…kids.”  Something about their sound when I listened to the EP, I thought they were college dudes or something; but I guess it makes sense that this is what the kids are making these days.
   After their set I went and just asked if they’d be down for an informal interview and they were all about it.  The singer guy said he had read one of my blogs and liked it; he was stoked I wasn’t gonna be talking shit.  (Sorry bro that’s all I really know how to do).
   I didn’t have my voice recorder with me so I just jotted their answers down haphazardly; I’m not even gonna try to re-enact their exact quotes, I’m just gonna put their various answers together the way I remember them. HERESY.
   The Frights are a garage-indie band from Poway, CA and they started playing in December 2012. They’re only 18-19 years old but have an ‘old band’ called Black Hootie from when they were in high school. At some point that band played at the Soma in San Diego and from there they got to know the management of the venue. Because of that connection they played back-to-back Fridays there a few weekends ago, one of those shows being an opening slot for Bad Religion.



   I want to emphasize again that these kids are 19 at the oldest and have only been a band for like 4 months. How Soma shows with Bad Religion materialized so quickly is fucking beyond me. Some people have all the luck.

   Due to the nature of their sound I asked them what their favorite SD area beach was, even though I already know the answer to that question. They threw out Mission Beach and Del Mar before settling on Belmont Park, which they describe as “San Diego’s Venice.”   Noticing that these kids have a full-blown tour van, I asked how that came to be.  Apparently it was on of their dads’ old plumbing van.  
   The stars just aligned for these fucking kids.

   The Frights: Richard plays bass and eats cereal for every meal. Mikey plays guitar and does vocals; his favorite breakfast consists of eggs, hash browns, and gravy. Adam plays drums and is “not a big breakfast guy.”  WHATEVER.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Frights/339371396082462
Bandcamp: http://dafrights.bandcamp.com/